Farmers seek help in South Jersey

MANY DON'T GET U.S. SUBSIDIES

Jul. 2, 2007

Written by

RAJU CHEBIUM

GANNETT NEWS SERVICE

VINELAND — Many farmers in predominantly agricultural South Jersey — the region that puts "garden" in the Garden State — aren't having a rosy financial year.

On top of it, most of the farmers here don't qualify for federal farm subsidies, which Congress awards primarily to growers of corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton and other commodity crops in the Midwest and South.

Out-of-state competition is strong and prices for a major vegetable grown here — lettuce — are soft, said Peter Bylone Sr., manager of the Vineland Produce Auction. It is one of the nation's largest fruit and vegetable trading houses that connect local growers with commercial buyers from as far as Florida, Chicago and Canada and did $60 million in business last year.

It costs the typical South Jersey farmer, who owns between 100 and 200 acres of land and uses chemically produced fertilizers and pesticides to mass produce virtually every vege-table imaginable, about $4 to cut, clean and package a box of lettuce, Bylone said.

"When you get $4 to $5 for a box of lettuce, there's no money in that. You've got to get around $7 to $8. With the cost of fuel that went up, that affects the cost of everything. Fertilizer went up through the roof because it's petroleum based," Bylone said on a steamy June afternoon.

"You hope that (local growers) make up for it through the season. They work hard but for some reason they just can't seem to get the expenses out," he said. "(These) are farmers that basically see no subsidies."

He said farmers of small to medium-sized operations would welcome grants and loans from Washington, which the Democrat-controlled Congress is considering as part of a broad overhaul of federal farm policy this year.

Gilbert Mazzoni, a 73-year-old retired grower who works part-time on his son's 100-acre vegetable farm in Buena, said he knows who's getting the bulk of the subsidy money — big corporate farms.

"Everything that they do in Washington, it's all for the grain farmers — big corporation farms; (it) doesn't help any family farmer in New Jersey. The family farm — they don't know that you exist," he said, stubbing out a cigarette. "You tell them in Washington I'm pissed off."

To compete with out-of-state growers, Dennis Mazzoni Farms has diversified its crop to include food favored by ethnic groups like Indians and Latin Americans. So Mazzoni helps his son grow several varieties of peppers and cilantro, which are used in Indian and Mexican cooking.

As a farmer for 50 years, Mazzoni said he mostly grew garden-variety peppers and sweet potatoes.

"Now that's all gone," he said, adding with a laugh: "When I was farming, I didn't know what the hell cilantro was."

Here in South Jersey, organic farming isn't catching on like it is in North and Central Jersey. Farmers here say they favor diversification, but they are focused more on capturing the business of grocery store chains and less on selling chemical-free produce on a small scale at farm stands.

Mazzoni rejected suggestions that organic farming will result in healthier and more plentiful produce.

"You tell them they're out of their minds. I'll tell them that myself. It can't be done," he said. "You can't grow stuff and make money organically. The guys who are growing it, it's a hobby for them. . . . I'll show you a picture of an apple that was organic and you wouldn't buy that apple because it's got wormholes all over it."

A bigger worry for South Jersey is preserving family farms, Bylone said.

If farmers don't get federal help and have a couple of lackluster growing seasons during which they don't earn enough to break even, they're more likely to carefully consider lucrative offers from real-estate developers seeking to build houses and commercial buildings on farmland, Bylone said.

"The biggest thing we need to think about is how do you keep the business, how do you entice that young man to go into farming?" he said. "A lot of farmers have reached retirement."